Uncle

by Gary J Whitehead

Sometimes they talk with me,

these children I have not fathered,

and the things they say,

though I forget them,

seem like sentences out of books

I read once and haven’t thought of since.

Today, a boy who in the absence

of his density might have been me,

the fiddlehead of his hand

in mine, followed me

through the upstairs hall,

asking something which,

if I had to guess,

I’d say had to do with destiny.

Outside, a school bus was passing,

the rev of its engine

like a bow drawn across a string,

a brief life’s arc of sound

into and out of the house –

windows and walls and quiet rooms –

where I stood dumbstruck

and almost ready to answer.
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“Uncle” is from Gary J Whitehead’s third collection of poetry, the intriguingly titled A Glossary of Chickens, published in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, edited by Paul Muldoon.